For a decade at Amazon, nearly everyone I worked with was following the linear, expected path. High school, university, degree, FAANG job. Amazon basically didn't interview SDE1s unless they were new grads. For a number of years that policy was explicit from our Director because "we find that works out best".
Now I'm at Shopify, where it feels like a complete 180. More than half my team took non-traditional paths- former dietician, government clerk, logger (like with a chainsaw). My team doesn't even seem like an outlier.
One thing I've noticed: the women I work with now are far more likely to have taken a non-linear path to get here. They weren't encouraged to go into that career when they were in high school, but later in life realized it was a good choice. One really great staff dev I've worked with told me how she was encouraged to be a tech recruiter (and did), then slowly realized she could be the one making the huge salaries she was offering people.
Amazon would never have given them a chance. And funny enough, Amazon struggles to hire women in dev roles.
Now I'm at Shopify, where it feels like a complete 180. More than half my team took non-traditional paths- former dietician, government clerk, logger (like with a chainsaw). My team doesn't even seem like an outlier.
One thing I've noticed: the women I work with now are far more likely to have taken a non-linear path to get here. They weren't encouraged to go into that career when they were in high school, but later in life realized it was a good choice. One really great staff dev I've worked with told me how she was encouraged to be a tech recruiter (and did), then slowly realized she could be the one making the huge salaries she was offering people.
Amazon would never have given them a chance. And funny enough, Amazon struggles to hire women in dev roles.